


regarding us

by casdoms (moffwithhishead)



Series: season 12 [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode Tag, Episode: s12e11 Regarding Dean, Love Confessions, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 10:05:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9651053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moffwithhishead/pseuds/casdoms
Summary: “Cas... what’s...” Dean licks his lips and looks at Rowena, “What’s the deal with them?”Rowena looks at him for a moment, sizing him up, before she closes her book. “That’s a loaded question if I ever heard one.”Dean sighs, “I read our, uh...” He frowns, the word not coming to him, so he pulls out his phone and holds it up.“Your text messages?” Rowena supplies, being more patient than feels normal.“Yeah,” he nods, gesturing with his phone. “And I think...” Dean frowns at the lock screen again, “I’m pretty sure I’m Dean. I think I am. But if I’m not, I think Dean is in love with Cas.”Rowena lets out a startled bark of a laugh that turns a little bit hysterical.





	

**Author's Note:**

> spoilers for 12.11, obviously. kinda angsty but it's got a happy ending, I promise!
> 
> and before you say "but dean broke his phone" they have androids and can pop their simcards out and put them into other phones super easily. so it's entirely plausible that when they went back to the motel to change after the diner, sam swapped the simcards for dean.

He can’t take his eyes off of his reflection. He’s crying but he’s not really sure why.

There’s something... he’s forgetting something. Everything? Something.

Dean wipes his face off and splashes water on it, a vague sense of deja vu overtaking him. He feels - he doesn’t know how to describe it. Something’s wrong, very wrong, but he’s not sure what.

He leans forward to rest his forehead on the wall and feels something in his front pocket hit the sink. 

He pulls it out hoping it’ll have a clue or a hint what he’s forgetting. 

He stares blankly at the lock screen for a moment. It’s a generic photo, he’s pretty sure. What are those called? Sto...

Dean makes a frustrated noise under his breath and slides his finger across the screen, unlocking it. 

It feels foreign in his hand and it bugs him for some reason. He doesn’t know how he knows, but he knows this isn’t actually his phone - or, at least, it hasn’t been his for a long time. 

He sits down on the toilet and presses the texts icon hoping for something, anything to help him remember.

He blanks out for a moment and the time on the phone tells him that three minutes has passed. He doesn’t remember what he was doing but the phone is still lit up, staring back at him with all these conversations he doesn’t remember having. 

His thumbs hit one called ‘Cas’ and he stares at it for a moment in surprise.

  


 

Dean. That has to be him, right?

He scrolls through the texts, hoping it’ll shake something loose in his brain. If this... Cas-person knows his name he has to know other things about Dean, right?

They’re... boring, for the most part. 

  


 

A few make him smile.

  


 

The texts from last night though... they make him pause.

  


 

He can feel his face heating up with how much he’s blushing and, well - he doesn’t have to remember his name to be embarrassed just reading those texts.

Dean locks his phone and shoves it in his back pocket quickly, running a hand through his hair and just stays like that for a few minutes.

This keeps happening where everything gets fuzzy for a moment, like he’s going to pass out, before he gets, like - electrocuted back into reality. At least, that’s what he thinks this feels like. He’s never been electrocuted. 

Dean pushes himself up and walks back out into the motel room and can’t stop himself from visibly startling when he sees the small redhead waiting on the bed.

“Uh,” he blinks, “I -”

The woman laughs, quirking an eyebrow, “Calm down, Dean, we’re...” She pauses for a moment, “Well, we’re working together for now.”

He’s not sure if that’s supposed to make him feel better about some random woman being in his room but he nods, “Uh... okay.”

She seems to take that as the end of the conversation because she goes back to reading a big book and taking notes on the motel’s stationary. 

Dean clears his throat after a moment, “I, uh -” He winces, “What’s your name?”

She looks up at him, surprised, before laughing lightly, “Silly me, I forgot. Yes, you don’t remember, I’m Rowena. I’m a witch.”

Rowena crosses her legs and smirks for some reason Dean is sure is way over his head. “We’re not friends.”

“O... kay?” He shrugs a little, feeling slightly less weirded out by the whole thing

Slightly. 

They sit there in awkward silence for a few moments before Rowena pats the bed next to her, “Sit sit dearie, take a load off. You’re having a rough day, might as well be comfortable during it.”

Dean takes her up on it but he ends up sitting on the bed across from her and keeps his hands on his shoes.

He can feel it getting harder and harder to remember things so he keeps repeating what he can remember in his head: _I think I’m Dean, my brother is Sam, I have a mom and Cas is..._

“Lord knows what Castiel is to you, dear,” Rowena says through a chuckle without looking up from the book.

Dean just blinks at her for a moment, “Witches... can read minds?”

Rowena looks up, arching an eyebrow at him, “With the proper spell, sure, but you said that out loud, cupcake.” 

He feels his face scrunch up at the nickname before he forces it into a scowl and looks over at the clock.

It doesn’t actually bother him, her calling him cupcake, but it’s like his brain is trying to remind him of everything all at once. He’s not bothered by the nickname but his brain is telling him he should be. 

After a few more minutes of silence and Dean repeating the mantra to himself (actually in his head this time, thank you), he finally asks.

“Cas... what’s...” Dean licks his lips and looks at Rowena, “What’s the deal with them?”

Rowena looks at him for a moment, sizing him up, before she closes her book. “That’s a loaded question if I ever heard one.”

Dean sighs, “I read our, uh...” He frowns, the word not coming to him, so he pulls out his phone and holds it up.

“Your text messages?” Rowena supplies, being more patient than feels normal.

“Yeah,” he nods, gesturing with his phone. “And I think...” Dean frowns at the lock screen again, “I’m pretty sure I’m Dean. I think I am. But if I’m not, I think Dean is in love with Cas.”

Rowena lets out a startled bark of a laugh that turns a little bit hysterical.

Dean almost jumps back on the bed, feeling a little startled himself, “What? Why are you laughing?”

It takes Rowena a few moments before she starts wiping her cheeks off and calming down, “Oh dear, sorry... I just -” She lets out a loud laugh one more time, “Who knew it would take forgetting everything about yourself for you to admit that you are in love with the angel?”

There’s a lot of things that confuse Dean in that statement but he ignores them for now (it’s not like he’ll remember them in fifteen minutes) and asks -

“Do they know?”

He wonders if normally he’d be embarrassed asking. He thinks so, considering something in his gut is telling him to lock himself in a closet and never come out again.

“Yes,” Rowena says through some leftover chuckles. “He knows.”

Oh. So the closet thing was right on the money then.

“Heh,” Dean laughs quietly and despite everything, he feels himself smiling. “Awesome.” 

* * *

 

He forgets again (he keeps doing that) but something’s nagging at him.

Someone, something important.

The doll Rowena gives him is entertaining to a point but eventually he sets it down and goes over to the bed and lays down.

He’s had a headache for... well. Dean has no idea for how long, actually, but he’s gonna guess it’s been a long time judging by how much his head is pounding.

He can feel himself about to pass out before his phone dings on the bed next to him.

  


 

He hesitates for a moment before responding.

  


 

Dean snorts, finally understanding what Rowena means when she says ‘now _that’s_ a loaded question.’ 

  


 

He’s stubborn. Dean likes that in a person (or at least, he thinks he does). He should probably pull the trigger and ask the question that keeps bouncing back in his brain before he forgets again.

  


 

Dean spaces for about two minutes and has to reread their conversation to remember. He kinda feels like he shouldn’t respond but this stupid question is the only thing that’s been sticking for the last hour.

  


 

He stares at the phone for what feels like just a few seconds (but turns out to be almost ten minutes) while waiting for a reply.

  


 

The world starts to go fuzzy again and Dean groans, holding his head in his hands. Rowena ignores him in favor of fiddling with the spell set up and checking her phone for updates from Sam. 

It takes a few minutes for everything to right itself and everything’s worse than it was before. It takes him a second to read the note written in sharpie on his hands.

YOU ARE DEAN.

His phone buzzes again and he stares at it blankly for a moment. There’s... something. Someone, maybe? It’s important.

He grabs it and it takes him what turns out to be five minutes to remember how to open it so he can read whatever made it buzz.

  


 

“Huh?” He mumbles to himself, rubbing a hand over his face before responding quickly. 

  


 

And then everything goes dark.

* * *

 

He lied to Rowena about not remembering everything.

Okay, well - he doesn’t remember **_everything_**. But he remembers enough to leave his phone turned off and packed away in his duffel bag in the trunk the entire drive back to the bunker. 

Sam has been mercifully quiet about the whole thing except for the gentle and annoying (but, uh... not necessarily unwelcome) reminders about the things that are still fuzzy.

Like which key is for the Impala, what exit is the bunker off of, the name of the song on the radio.

The curse has definitely been broken but it’s like Dean’s brain is a brand new hard drive in the middle of a data transfer.

He knows the basic stuff and he repeats it to himself when they stop at a gas station and Sam goes in to pay the man behind the counter.

“My name is Dean Winchester. My brother Sam is in the car with me. We hunt monsters. Our mother’s name is Mary Winchester and she’s hunting by herself. I was born in Lawrence, Kansas. My dad’s name is John Winchester and he was a piece of shit. Cas...”

Even still, Dean has to take a breath at that.

“Cas is our best friend.” 

Sam gets back in the car and Dean takes off without a word and the silence lasts the rest of the way back to the bunker.

When they’ve got everything unloaded Sam stops halfway through shutting the trunk and looks at Dean like he’s afraid he’s gonna get something thrown at him.

“Do you...” Sam seems to make up his mind after a moment, “You remember where your room is? Or you want me to show you?”

And Dean hates that it takes him a minute to remember.

“Nah,” he offers with a small, hopefully convincing smile, “I know where it is.”

He jogs down the stairs into the bunker after that without looking back or waiting for his brother. And he’s glad he did because it takes him two tries to find the right room.

(What? In his defense, they’re coming in from the garage, not from the front door... it’s different.)

Dean can’t even find it in him to be surprised when he opens the door and Cas is sitting on his bed and flipping through Dean’s journal.

He shuts the door behind him and drops his duffel by the dresser without looking at Cas, “Didn’t anybody ever tell you it’s rude to read that shit, Cas?”

He feels Cas’ eyes on him from the bed and part of Dean wants to run away. He keeps his voice rough and as nonchalant as he can.

“Take a picture Cas, it’ll last longer.”

Dean feels a hand on his shoulder and he smiles despite himself, still putting his clean clothes away.

“You know somethin, man? I couldn’t remember which key was for Baby but just now, I _knew_ it was you walking over here. I remembered what it feels like when you’re in the room.”

Cas’ hand just slides down his arm, his hand wrapping around Dean’s wrist. His voice is quiet when he asks, “What does it feel like?”

Again Dean smiles a little bit, stopping his work for the moment, “You can’t laugh at me.”

“I assure you Dean,” Cas murmurs, “I’m not in the mood to laugh.”

Dean turns around at that, swallowing when he sees how close Cas is to his face. There’s maybe six inches between them right now. If he moves at all, his knees are gonna bump into Cas. 

“The room changes...” He keeps his eyes on Cas’ tie, reaches out to fiddle with it absently. “It feels fuller. And you... when you’re all mojo’d up, you don’t have any footsteps.” 

He smooths out the tie with his other hand, “So I can’t ever hear you coming Cas, but I can feel the air moving. And it’s like it’s moving to make way for you.” Dean smiles when the tie is straight, “I always figured it’s cause your wings are there. But the air still made way for you when you were human so I kinda think it’s just you.” 

He looks up after a moment and Cas is smiling at him. Dean’s heart skips three whole beats.

Cas sets a hand on his waist carefully. It’s just resting there, not keeping him in place or grabbing him. He’s giving Dean a chance to back out of this conversation if he wants and Dean’s chest aches with how much he loves him.

“I was worried about you,” Castiel says quietly. His voice sounds deeper than normal, almost rougher.

“You and me both,” Dean huffs and grabs Cas’ free hand, toying with it.

Castiel takes a step closer and their boots bump together before sliding into place next to each other. Their knees bump together now and Dean smiles.

“So...” He finally twines their fingers together, one of his feet hooking their ankles together as well, “You love me, huh?”

Castiel answers without hesitation, “Unfortunately.”

It earns a bright but subdued laugh from Dean that leaves a big, sincere smile on his face. The two of them are a matching set with their smiles and eye crinkles and Dean pulls Cas close enough so he can rest their foreheads together.

“Love you too, smartass.”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @ deansmom


End file.
